By JOSH FUNK

President Donald Trump has fired one of two Democratic members of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to break a 2-2 tie before the body considers the largest railroad merger ever proposed.

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Board member Robert E. Primus said on LinkedIn that he received an email from the White House Wednesday night terminating the position he has held since he was appointed by Trump in his first term. The vacancy would allow Trump to appoint two additional Republicans to the board before its decision on the Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger though the Senate would have to confirm them.

Primus was the only board member to oppose Canadian Pacific’s acquisition of Kansas City Southern railroad when it was approved two years ago because he was concerned it would hurt competition. He was named Board chairman last year by former President Joe Biden and led the board until Trump, after his election, elevated Board member Patrick Fuchs to Chairman.

This follows Trump’s previous firings of board members at the National Transportation Safety Board, Federal Reserve, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which are all supposed to be independent agencies.

“Robert Primus did not align with the President’s America First agenda, and was terminated from his position by the White House,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said. “The administration intends to nominate new, more qualified members to the Surface Transportation Board in short order.”

Primus said he doesn’t think the firing is valid because the White House didn’t offer any cause for it, and he plans to fight. He also rejected their explanation for the move because he has long tried to encourage railroads to serve every industry better and help them grow, but he has already been removed from the STB website.

“I’ve been pro growth across the board in terms of encouraging growth in the freight rail network, which in turn will grow our national economy. So if that’s not being in line with America first, then I don’t know what America he’s saying is first,” Primus said to The Associated Press.

He said the firings at all these agencies threaten their independence and credibility. Primus said in his tenure the STB always strove to be impartial and apolitical.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who serves on the Commerce Committee, said it’s clear that “Donald Trump is trying to stack the deck so the federal government rubberstamps the merger as a huge favor for Wall Street and wealthy railroad owners.” She said Primus has been a fair regulator who worked hard to make sure railroads delivered for their customers and focused on safety.

Every rail worker union and the nonprofit Rail Passengers Association also quickly condemned the firing.

“The explanation provided for this decision — that his position has been “eliminated” — is nothing short of outrageous. Appointed bodies established through federal code are not designed to be erased at the whim of powerful corporate interests,” said the SMART-TD union that represents concductors. “This action is unprecedented, unlawful in spirit, and reeks of direct interference from hedge funds and the nation’s largest rail carriers.”

The board is set to consider Union Pacific’s $85 billion acquisition of Norfolk Southern in the next two years before deciding whether to approve the nation’s first transcontinental railroad and reduce the number of major freight railroads in the U.S. to five.

Primus said the biggest problems in the industry are the lack of growth and poor service after all the deep cuts railroads have made over the last decade in the interest of efficiency and improving profitability. He hasn’t taken a position on the UP-NS deal, but he doesn’t think mergers will necessarily improve competition.

“We don’t need to merge to increase competition. We need to understand that we have to grow,” he said.

The city of Afton, which has been holding council meetings on Zoom since the COVID-19 pandemic, had to shut down the online option for remote participation last week when a meeting was hijacked by hackers sharing pornographic videos.

City officials immediately tried to close out the videos, but “there were multiple sign-ins/people, so we could not get rid of them,” said Mayor Bill Palmquist. When they restarted the meeting, the videos came back after just a few minutes, Palmquist said.

“Unfortunately, we had to shut it down and just stop the feed,” he said. “I guess this has happened to other cities as well. It is very disappointing, to say the least.”

City officials have decided to stop using Zoom for council meetings and planning commission meetings “until we can ensure a secure remote access option,” he said. “We will do our best to get it back up and running again as soon as possible.”

The option to participate remotely has been “used and appreciated by residents” since it first became available a few years ago, Palmquist said.

The city council meetings will continue to be broadcast live, he said.

Palmquist said his “Spidey sense” went off when he noticed that 12 people had logged on to Zoom for the Aug. 19 council meeting instead of the “usual five or six.”

“It was pretty graphic and strange stuff,” he said. “You don’t need to see it for but a second to know that you need to stop it.”

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A missing 12-year-old boy with autism, whose body was discovered in a New Orleans canal following a nearly two-week-long search, died from “blunt force due to an alligator” and drowning, police said Wednesday.

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Bryan Vasquez was first reported missing on the morning of Aug. 14, after he reportedly escaped through a bedroom window in the East side of the city, the New Orleans Police Department said. The nonverbal boy was seen on doorbell camera footage, wearing only a diaper and walking down the street alone, around 5:20 a.m. that morning. His body was found on Tuesday, located by a drone.

The boy’s mother, Hilda Vasquez, had told The New Orleans Advocate/The Times-Picayune that her son would often sneak away from their home to head to a playground nearby. However, they’d recently moved to a new house.

Neighbors and friends of the Vasquez family searched Village De L’East in New Orleans, Sunday, Aug. 17, 2025, for Bryan Vasquez, 12, who has been missing since Thursday. (John McCusker/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)

Bryan’s disappearance prompted a massive search that included multiple agencies, volunteers, airboats and bloodhounds.

As local and state crews combed the area, criticism mounted over the New Orleans Police Department’s delayed response. Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick said that there was a nearly five-hour gap between when the boy was reported missing and an officer arriving at the scene.

Kirkpatrick said the police department has launched an internal investigation into the lapse.

A coroner’s autopsy determined that Bryan drowned after he sustained trauma from an alligator, Kirkpatrick said at a news conference on Wednesday. The boy was found about 200 yards from where the search had started. Kirkpatrick said it is possible his body resurfaced after he died, which is common in drowning deaths.

“Bryan was a bright, charismatic, and energetic young boy whose joy and spirit touched the lives of his family, friends and community,” city officials said in a press release.

Kirkpatrick said she has asked the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries to remove “nuisance” alligators from the area where Bryan was found.

According to the wildlife agency, hunters capture and remove more than 1,000 nuisance alligators every year in an effort to minimize encounters between the alligators and humans. Louisiana is home to the largest alligator population in the country.

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER

WASHINGTON (AP) — A man captured on camera hurling a sandwich at a federal agent in D.C. has been charged with a misdemeanor offense after prosecutors failed to convince a grand jury to return a more serious felony indictment, according to court papers filed Thursday.

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The move is a blow to the Trump administration, which had highlighted the felony assault case against Sean Charles Dunn to show it would aggressively prosecute violence against law enforcement — even after Trump pardoned Jan. 6 rioters who brutally attacked officers with poles and other makeshift weapons.

The White House had spotlighted Dunn’s case with a dramatic social media video of his arrest by federal agents. And Washington’s top federal prosecutor, Jeanine Pirro, also touted the felony charge in another social media video, saying into the camera: “So there, stick your subway sandwich somewhere else.”

Dunn is now charged with simple assault, which carries up to one year behind bars. Misdemeanor charges don’t require prosecutors to go to a grand jury. The felony assault charge calls for up to eight years behind bars. Dunn’s attorney didn’t immediately return an email seeking comment.

It’s so rare for a grand jury not to return an indictment that there’s an old saying that prosecutors could convince a grand jury to “indict a ham sandwich.” But grand juries have declined to return indictments a handful of times in recent weeks in Washington — a potential sign of residents’ frustration with the ongoing law enforcement operation that has led to federal charges in many cases that would typically be handled in local court.

A video of Dunn throwing the sandwich at the chest of the agent who was patrolling the nation’s capital went viral in the first days after Trump’s Aug. 11 order for federal agents and troops to flood Washington. Authorities say he also pointed a finger in an agent’s face and swore at him, calling him a “fascist.”

“Why are you here? I don’t want you in my city!” Dunn shouted, according to police.

Dunn tried to run away but was apprehended, police said. He was initially released and later arrested by federal agents on the felony assault charge. It was later revealed that he had been working as an international affairs specialist in the Justice Department’s criminal division, though he was swiftly fired by Attorney General Pam Bondi.

In another recent case, prosecutors in Washington acknowledged that three grand juries had voted separately against indicting a woman accused of assaulting an FBI agent outside the city’s jail in July, where she was recording video of the transfer of inmates into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Rebuffed by the grand juries, Pirro’s office is pursuing a misdemeanor assault charge against Sydney Lori Reid instead.